Taxonomy term

jurassic

Since 2005, a steady trickle of reports detailing proteins and other soft tissues preserved in fossils of dinosaurs and other ancient animals has gradually worn down the disbelief that such tissues can last through geologic time. In a new study in Scientific Reports, scientists have now reported the oldest preserved red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, found in the remains of an ancient marine reptile.

The climate of the Jurassic, long envisioned as ubiquitously warm from the equator to the poles, was actually more dynamic, sometimes cooling dramatically, according to a new study. The research joined isotopic and sedimentological data to suggest that an abrupt cooling event occurred in the midlatitudes early in the Middle Jurassic as a result of changing ocean currents associated with a feature known as the North Sea Dome.

Dinosaurs dominated the continents during the Mesozoic, and for a long time, paleontologists assumed our mammalian ancestors kept a low-profile in that era, existing only as small, ground-dwelling, nocturnal insect-eaters. But in the last decade, discoveries of an ever-increasing diversity of mammal fossils have forced a rethink: Mesozoic mammals were also gliders, climbers, diggers and swimmers. Now, scientists looking at mammalian rates of evolution during the time of the dinosaurs have found that this diversity peaked in the Mid-Jurassic, leading to new physical characteristics that would remain for millions of years.

Modern birds range across the color spectrum from brilliant blue to Big Bird yellow to vibrant vermillion, so it stands to reason that feathered dinosaurs shared these colorful traits. And in fact, few paleontologists have doubted that dinosaurs were multihued beasts. But until a couple of recent finds in China, they had no real evidence. Two new studies detail the findings, which researchers say also resolve the debate over whether birds descended from dinosaurs.